Security systems have traditionally been utilized for detecting unwanted data (e.g. viruses, malware, etc.). Such detection has become increasingly important in traditional business environments, where unwanted data has expanded beyond virus attacks to include the sending of obscene banned content in electronic mail messages, the abuse of network bandwidth by sharing media files, etc. Thus, the security systems have often been employed in networks for detecting unwanted data in such networks. For example, such detection has sometimes been achieved by scanning data for known unwanted data. However, the security systems have exhibited various limitations when multiple security systems are employed for scanning data.
For example, some traditional security systems scan data received over a network only if a version associated with the security system (e.g. a version of known unwanted data, a version of the engine utilized by the security system, etc.) differs from a version associated with another security system that previously scanned the data. This may be accomplished by using a stamp or the like that identifies such version information. Such security systems may also fail to scan received data if the stamp associated with the data indicates the data has been previously scanned, without performing a validation of the stamp. These traditional security systems may thus lead to a failure in detecting unwanted data.
Still yet, other traditional security systems scan all received data, regardless of whether the data has been previously scanned. However, this customarily results in performance degradation with respect to the network. There is thus a need for addressing these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.